Scalloped shirring and method of making same



March 17, 1953 E. L. SEAMAN SCALLOPED SHIRRING AND METHOD OF' MAKING SAME Filed Oct. 11, 1950 2 SHEETS-SHEET l N .m m. m M m a m M m M 5 I Y B 4 5 2 ,7 7 Z .J 3

w M "a 2 March 17, 1953 E. L. SEAMAN 2,631,294

vSCALLQPED SHIRRING AND METHOD OF MAKING SAME Filed on. 11, 1950 2 mus-4mm" 2 IN VEN TOR. fawn ea L SEAMAN WQ fim Patented Mar. 17, 1953 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE SCALLOPED SHIRRING AND METHOD OF MAKING SAME Application October 11, 1950, Serial N0. 189,493

2 Claims.

This invention relates to a novel form of trimming material for garments, curtains and like articles of manufacture and to the method of making it.

An object of the invention is to provide an attractive new trimming material which can be made and sold by itself.

Another object is to provide a trimming which can be made and simultaneously applied to the article which it is used to decorate.

The invention will be described in conjunction with the machine which I have invented to produce it and to carry out the method by which it is made, the machine, however, not being claimed herein since it is the subject of my co-pending application Ser. No. 189,492, filed October 11, 1950.

The invention will best be understood by considering the following detailed description of the apparatus by which the trimming is made, its

method of operation and the product produced thereby, referring to the drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 is a front elevation of a sewing machine embodying mechanism for making the new trimmmg;

Fig. 2 is a to plan view thereof with part of the head broken away;

Fig. 3 is an end view as seen from the right of Figs. 1 and 2;

Fig. 4. is a detail end elevation as seen from the left of Figs. 1 and 2 with certain parts omitted and others broken away showin the shirring and material-feeding mechanism;

Fig. 5 is a plan view of one form of trimming produced by the machine;

Fig. 6 shows the trimming applied in the hem between two layers of material which have been folded back after stitching;

Fig. 7 is a section on the line l-1 of Fig. 6;

Fig. 8 is a section through the guide tube taken on the line i8 of Fig. 4 and enlarged;

Fig. 9 is a fragment of material before folding to provide the strip for makin the trimming;

Fig. 10 is a section through the folded strip; and.

Fig. 11 is a modified form of fold which may be used.

Referring to the drawings, they show a standard sewing machine having a base it with a head having an overhanging arm I l and a needle head 12 which carries a reciprocating needle bar M in which a needle i5 is secured, all'in the usual manner. The head also carries a presser foot bar It, to which is secured the foot l8 be neathwhich (not shown) are the usual recipror-'" eating feed dogs to advance the material underneath the presser foot in a rearward direction. The machine is provided with the usual rotating main shaft l9 to which is secured the hand wheel 2i? and pulley 2| through which the machine is driven. Attached to the main shaft 19 is a sprocket 22, from which an auxiliary shaft 24 is driven by the cleated belt through the sprocket 28. This drive belt is surrounded by a guard 21 attached to a casting 21a which is fixed to the head of the machine by the bolt 28, and which also serves as a bearing for one end of the shaft 24. Attached to the rear of arm H is a supporting bracket 2i! having a boss in which the shaft 24 is rotatably supported near its other end. Bracket 29 is secured to arm I i by the bolt 3|.

It will be observed that the auxiliary shaft 24 rotates at a speed bearing a fixed relation to the speed of main shaft 19, the speeds of these two shafts being the same in the embodiment illustrated because the sprockets 22 and 29 are the same size. Shaft 24 actuates the shirring and feeding mechanism which will now be described.

The shirring mechanism is supported from the bracket 29 which has a lateral extension 34 and a forwardly-extending downwardly-sloping arm 35 at the end of which is a boss 36 drilled to rotatably support a stub shaft 38. On one end of this shaft is fixed an arcuate arm 39 having a slot 48. Slidably supported in this slot is one end of a link 4! which can be locked in position by the wing nut 42, the other end of this link being eccentrically attached at 44 to the end of shaft 24. lhe ends 41 and 44 of the link include suitable bearings. Thus, revolution of shaft 24 rocks the stub shaft 38 to the other end of which is fixed the arm 45 which carries the support 46 for the shirring blade 48. This blade is provided with a serrated forward edge'to grip the material and is pressed downwardly, by means of a coil spring 49 surrounding the shaft to which blade 48 is attached, against the shirring plate 50 which is fastened to the base It of the machine and has a portion 5i which is spaced slightly from the base it! to permit passage of material underneath it.

As the machine operates the shirring blade 48 is reciprocated in a forward and backward direction formingfolds in the material 52 which is fed between the portion 5! of plate 50 and shirring blade :28. The size of the folds may be varied by changing the point of connection of link 41 to the arm 39. This particular form of shirring mechanism, which is known per se, is well adapted to the production of the novel trimming 3 but other forms may be used and the invention is not limited to any particular form.

The shirring material feeding means is supported from an arm 60 rigidly attached to the boss 36 of arm 35 and carrying at its forward end a bearing rotatably supporting the shaft 62 having a collar 63 to the left of the bearing. To the right-hand end of this shaft a pulley B4 is fixed, this pulley being driven by a belt 65 which is driven in turn by the pulley 66 fixed on shaft 24 adjacent bracket 39. The left-hand end of shaft 62 is in the form of a doublethreaded traversing screw 68, the outer end of which is additionally supported by an angular bracket 69 having a longitudinal slot paralleling the screw 68 and supported in the arm 60. Mounted on the screw 68 is a suitable nut H adapted to traverse the screw, first in one direction and then in the other, as the screw is continuously rotated. Attached to the nut is a tongue 12 which extends through the slot 76 and holds the nut against rotation while permitting it to move horizontally. Supported from the nut H by the braces 74 and I5 is a hollow shirring material guide 76 which is in the form of a flat tube of rectangular cross-section suited in size to the material to be used. (See Fig. 8.) Other known forms of guides may be substituted for such a tube. The lower end of tube I6 is positioned to feed the material 52 directly onto the top of portion 5| of plate 50.

As may best be seen in Fig. 2, the continuous reciprocation of the shirring material guide 16 from one side to the other of the line of stitching causes the material 52 to be fed to the needle along a sinuous path, forming scallops on opposite sides of the line of stitching. This feeding of the material, which is at the same time shirred by the action of blade 48 causes the shirring material to be laid down and stitched in a unique and very attrative pattern as illustrated in Fig. 5 where the shirring material 52 is shown as sewed to a base material 89 which would be fed underneath portion 5| of plate 50 as shown in Fig. 4. It will be obvious to those skilled in the art that the trimming produced by the simultaneously shirred and sinuously laid material 52 can be applied to any part of a fabric, either on the body thereof or along the edge and, by the conjoint use of suitable hemming attachments to fold a hem on the base fabric, the trimming may be simultaneously applied with the sewing of the hem, forming an attractive decorative hemmed edge.

Figs. 6 and 7 illustrate another application of the novel trimming where it is laid between two layers of base fabric 8| and 82, these layers at the time of stitching overlying the portion of the trimming shown in full lines in Fig. 6, slightly less than half of the trimming, as shown in the dotted lines in Fig. 6, being out 01f simultaneously with or following the stitching operation so that when the layers of base fabric are folded back as shown in Fig. 7 a shirred and scalloped edging protrudes from between the layers of base fabric, producing a scalloped, shirred edge trimming having the appearance illustrated by Fig, 6. If desired, the edges may be left uncut so that half of the scalloped trimming remains between the layers of base fabric.

A trimming material suitable for separate application to garments and the like may be produced by running the shirring material through the machine Without any base fabric, the stitching alone serving to secure this shirred and loped trimming laid equally on opposite sides of a single line of stitching, the pattern may further be varied by adjusting the guide traversing mechanism so that the shirring material is laid predominantly to one side of the line of stitching so that the line of stitching is not in the center of the trimming. Furthermore by using a two-needle machine equipped with a cutter operating between the two lines of stitching two pieces of scalloped shirred trimming having, of course, scallops only on one side, can be made simultaneously.

Various forms of textile fabrics or other sheet materials may be used as the shining material from which the trimming is produced. It may be a material such as braid having selvage edges, or the trimming may be produced from strips cut from material and hence having unfinished edges. When such strips are used, they are preferably folded, as illustrated in Figs. 9, 10 and 11. Fig. 9 shows a fragment of a strip in which the fold lines are indicated at a and b, and the unfinished edges at c and d. This material is preferably folded into fiat tubular form as shown in Fig. 10, pressed and spooled for use so that the exposed edges of the trimming are folds. This gives an attractive body to and enhances the decorative appearance of the trimming. Instead of overlapping the folded ends as shown in Fig. 10, they may be folded as shown in Fig. 11. In either case, as the folded strip is laid in its sinuous path, the line of stitching catches all of the layers of the material, preventing the exposure of a raw edge.

Instead of using a prefolded strip of shirring material such as those just described, fed through a guide such as 16, the guide may be replaced by any desired type of folder so that unfolded material can be fed to the machine and delivered to the shirring mechanism in folded form. It will be understood that such folder would be reciprocated in the same manner as guide 16 to lay the folded material in a sinuous path.

While the invention has been illustrated by reference to a detailed description of the present preferred embodiment thereof, it is not to be construed as limited to such details since obvious modifications may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention as defined in the appended claims.

I claim:

1. The method of forming a scalloped edging extending outwardly of the folded edges of two layers of base fabric which comprises the steps of feeding a strip of shirring material between the unfolded edges of said base fabric, feeding said layers of base fabric through a sewing machine to stitch their edges together, simultaneously guiding said strip first to one side and then to the other of the line of stitching to form scallops extending on opposite sides of the line of stitching, shirring said strip to form transverse folds therein in advance of the point where it is stitched between said edges, and folding the layers of base fabric back along the line of stitching to expose the scalloped edge portion of said strip which lay between the layers of base fabric during the stitching operation.

2. An edge trimming comprising, in combination, two layers of base fabric, a line of stitching joining together the edges of said layers, a strip of material laid between said layers and secured by said stitching, said strip being shirred to have transverse folds and laid in a sinuous path to form scallops on opposite sides of said line of stitching, said layers of base fabric being folded back over the line of stitching to form hemmed edges from between which said scallops protrude.

EDWARD L. SEAMAN.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS 

